Book: Between Migdol and the Sea: Crossing the Red Sea with Faith and Science

Topic: The Hebrew Exodus from Egypt

Author: Carl Drews

Description

Between Migdol and the Sea (2014) presents a scientific view of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, as described in the biblical book of Exodus. The crossing site is located in the eastern Nile delta, where the Pelusiac branch of the Nile river once flowed into a large coastal lagoon known as the Lake of Tanis. This research was published in several peer-reviewed publications (see below); the book presents the Tanis hypothesis for a general audience.

Between Migdol and the Sea contains two major themes:

1) The Hebrew Exodus from Egypt really did happen.Migdol includes a detailed chronology that places the Exodus in 1250 BC, during the New Kingdom reign of Pharaoh Rameses II.
Four candidates for Mt. Sinai are examined for agreement with the geography of the Exodus.
Chapter 9 contains an extensive rebuttal to the claims of biblical minimalists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman in The Bible Unearthed (2001).

2) Faith and science can and should be compatible with each other.
The religious and scientific views of an event or natural phenomenon do not have to be in conflict.
Between Migdol and the Sea demonstrates that when readers of the Bible are willing to consider other interpretations of the text, and when scientists are willing to acknowledge the limits of scientific inquiry, then Science can become the study of God's creation and His marvelous works. Faith and science both seek the Truth. Chapter 12 explains how these two disciplines should be mutually supportive and in harmony.

Author Pages

Related Publications

Master's thesis: "Application of Storm Surge Modeling to Moses' Crossing of the Red Sea; and to Manila Bay, the Philippines",
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado - Boulder, 2009.
The thesis document is published by ProQuest,
and is also available through the Chinook Library Catalog of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Puzzles in the Book

I have included a few hidden references for the curious reader. In the first two chapters, find allusions to:

American General George Patton (1885 - 1945)

The Battle of Leyte Gulf (1944)

The Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War (1854)

King Abdullah II of Jordan (1962 - )

Tarik is patterned after two historical/literary characters, one ancient and one modern.
Who are they? The first is fairly obvious. The second is much harder.
The second one appears in Abraham Rabinovich's book The Yom Kippur War (2004).

In Migdol Chapters 3-12, find:

The Boromir meme from Lord of the Rings: "One does not simply walk into Mordor."

Why did the windshield wipers on the 1960 Rambler American speed up while you were shifting gears?

Where is there an allusion to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), by Douglas Adams?

How did Rameses II survive the Tenth Plague (death of the first-born son)?
The answer is on page 18 of Kitchen "Pharaoh Triumphant" (1982),
but it was given earlier in my blog series on Google Plus (read about Queen Tuya).

What perfect square and perfect cube sum to equal the number of seeds painted on the back trunk of the watermelon car?

The answers to solved puzzles will be posted on Google Plus after the 2015 Academy Awards.

Further Reading

Was There an Exodus? by Joshua Berman, March 2 2015. (Yes!)
Many are sure that one of Judaism’s central events never happened. Evidence, some published here for the first time, suggests otherwise.
Joshua Berman is professor of Bible at Bar-Ilan University and at Shalem College in Israel, and a research fellow at the Herzl Institute. In this lengthy article at Mosaic magazine, Dr. Berman describes the evidence in favor of a historical Hebrew Exodus from Egypt. Although written independently, his reasoning has many simularities to the points I raise in my book Between Migdol and the Sea. "Many major events reported in various ancient writings are archaeologically invisible." There were not millions of Israelites. Archaeology has confirmed many aspects of the Exodus narrative that a later fabrication would be unlikely to get right. And Egyptian descriptions of the Battle of Kadesh have close parallels in the Exodus 14-15 account of crossing the Red Sea.